News of the Day (December 6)

China Support Network mourns Liu Binyan: Liu Binyan, who joined the Chinese Communist Party in the 1940s and became one of its loudest critics and opponents as the Party advanced corruption to new heights and fired on its own people in Tiananmen Square, died in exile in the United States (BBC). John Patrick, founder of the parent organization, mourns the passing of “a giant of Chinese journalism.”

From the China Freedom Blog Alliance: One Free Korea guest blogger Andy Jackson gives his last report from a series of lectures on human rights in Stalinist North Korea. Meanwhile, the Communists’ would be colony is now trying to use the six-party nuclear talks debacle to get out of the penalties for counterfeiting (last item) imposed on them by the United States (BBC, Cybercast News).

Communists deny torture, as evidence of it continues to surface: It should come as no surprise that Communist China “denied a special U.N. investigator's report of widespread torture in the country, saying it had mechanisms in place to prevent the problem” (MSNBC). What was (pleasantly) surprising was the criticism of the Communists that came from U.S. Ambassador Clark T. Randt: “Human right abuses in China are still all too common.” Meanwhile, Falun Gong practitioner Zhang Mengye (third item) wrote an open letter to his old classmate – Hu Jintao – about the abuse he suffered at Communist hands (Epoch Times), and jailed reporter Shi Tao (fourteenth, fifth, lead, third, eighth, seventh, third, fifth, eighth, and last items) continues at forced labor (Boxun).

Communist China admits to selling organs of executed prisoners: Huang Jiefu, Communist Vice Health Minister, “frankly confessed that the majority of transplant organs in China have come from convicts sentenced to death” (Epoch Times). Of course, Huang wouldn’t mention how many of the executed donors were political prisoners, but already reports abound of “Falun Gong practitioners . . . tortured to death by policeman and their organs were removed.”

Anatomy of the Jilin-Harbin-Benzene cover-up: Matthew Forney and Susan Jakes, Time Asia, has an exclusive report on how and why cadres in the industrial northeast chose to keep the Petrochina plant explosion in Jilin and subsequent pollution in the Songhua River (seventh, fourth, ninth, fourth, fourth, fifth, and fourth items) a secret.

Enlightened Comment of the Day: Today’s winner is Ethan Gutmann, author of Losing the New China (and Member since 2004), for his opening remarks at the “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance” art exhibit in Tel Aviv, Israel (reprinted by the Epoch Times).

On Communist China and the Vatican: Hubertus Hoffmann, of the Global Security Network Foundation, analyzes the state of affairs between Communist China and the Roman Catholic Church (United Press Int’l via Washington Times).